Carter v. State

• Decision Date: 08 April 1946
• Docket Number: 36009.
• Citation: 199 Miss. 871,25 So.2d 470
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: CARTER v. STATE.

25 So.2d 470

199 Miss. 871

CARTER v. STATE.

No. 36009.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 8, 1946

Jackson & Young, of Jackson, for appellant.

Greek L. Rice, Atty. Gen., and R. O. Arrington Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

L. A. Smith, Sr., Justice.

Willie Carter was convicted in the Circuit Court of Newton County of the murder of G. S. Worthen in June 1944. On appeal here, 21 So.2d 404, not yet reported in State Reports, the judgment of conviction was reversed because from the record it appeared that appellant was then mentally incapable of remembering and intelligently stating the facts on which his defense rested.

In the first trial, no point was made of appellant's inability to take care of himself and assist his counsel at the trial because of his mental condition, but we considered it here nevertheless, as an exception to the general rule that questions not raised in the trial court cannot be raised for the first time on appeal, because it was an error 'affecting fundamental rights * * * or affecting public policy,' citing authorities. When the case was called for trial from which the present appeal was taken, counsel for appellant dictated into the record a suggestion of insanity to the extent that appellant was not then mentally capable of appearing and intelligently stating the facts on which his defense rested and offered evidence in support thereof. See Skinner v. State, Miss., 23 So.2d 501 (not yet reported in State Reports). Appellant's grandparents, who had raised him, and others who knew him and had known him for some time, and also two psychiatrists, testified before a circuit court jury impaneled and sworn to try this special issue. Certain documentary evidence was also offered, including the honorable discharge of appellant from the Army of the United States, and a letter from Dr. Mitchell, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield, appellant having been admitted thereto January 5, 1944, and having walked out therefrom, without leave later, and prior to the slaying. There is no record of any psychosis at the hospital, in the evidence. The jury heard the testimony, received the instructions of the court and the arguments of counsel, and returned a verdict to the effect that appellant was capable of conducting a rational defense and assisting his counsel therein. In the Skinner case, supra, we upheld the right of a defendant charged with crime orally to suggest to the court that he may be insane and that motion thereon may be orally made, but that it must be accompanied by affidavits, or the offer of witnesses to prove insanity, or inability to plead or conduct rational defense. We held also that such investigation could not be in the chancery court while a party under indictment was held in jail by an order of the circuit court, as he was then within the exclusive jurisdiction of that court, and approved refusal of a chancery court jury investigation in the Skinner case. However, the jury impaneled in the instant case was in the circuit court. In our judgment, there was ample proof before this jury to sustain its verdict. Later, when the trial was heard on the facts of the actual homicide, the verdict of the jury was reinforced by the manifest ability displayed by appellant when on the witness stand there. He also testified on the motion under discussion.

An examination of the Court's opinion on the previous appeal of the case at bar reveals that appellant's mind appeared then so clouded by disease or a drug administered to him by the sheriff as not to permit him to remember and intelligently state what occurred at the homicide. In the present record on his examination to determine whether or not he was mentally capable of making a rational defense, of remembering and intelligently stating the facts on which it rested, it appeared that he had also been given a drug, barbital, which according to the expert testimony, tended to bring about grogginess and a condition resembling drunkenness from alcohol. It seems also from this source that barbital is administered to epileptics to prevent spells, but that there is also another drug, sodium dallantum, which has the same effect without beclouding or befogging the mental processes. Barbital, it seems, causes the patient to become slow, to have difficulty in answering things correctly, and to bring about dullness of the mind. This appeared in the examination of his mental condition at the time of trial to be somewhat the state of mind of appellant when he testified, and the same condition appeared from the quotation of evidence in our previous opinion, supra. One of the psychiatrists said: 'He is not supposed to be that way under soldium drug and he is not supposed to be that way from the effects of epilepsy.' Furthermore, the testimony of the psychiatrists, who observed this appellant on this preliminary investigation to determine his mental ability adequately to participate in his trial, was, that he answered most questions as correctly as anybody could, and that he was then able to confer with his counsel in a reasonable way in his defense against the charge of murder. To the same effect was the testimony of the other psychiatrist, and both of these experts were introduced by and on behalf of appellant. It was stated that if he were denied barbital for thirty-six hours, the retarding process would disappear and he could confer with his attorney and prepare his defense on the murder charge to the extent of his desire. The evidence offered by appellant on this investigation demonstrated clearly that he was in condition to proceed with his trial, and hence we think the jury was correct in so holding, particularly as the court set the actual trial on the merits of the case two full days later. Then, apparently there was complete elimination of all effects from the barbital.

The appellant appropriately assigned several errors in connection with the trial in the court below, but, within the framework of these assignments, his counsel here says that on this appeal and on this record there are but two issues: '(1) Was appellant capable of making a rational defense under the constitutional guarantees? (2) Was appellant guilty of murder or manslaughter?' We have already decided against appellant on issue number one, which now brings us to issue number two. In the trial of this case, it appears from the instructions and from the examination of witnesses that appellant submitted in his behalf the question of his mental capacity at the time of the...